and it's never been a very big deal. this year they're talking about actually changing our budget because we have to. if we don't make changes now, the markets are going to force us to in the coming years and that will be a much more painful way to make changes. what happens if we don't raise the debt limit? the first thing is that we have to pay all the interest that we owe to bondholders and that means there will be much, much less left over for social security payments every year, to reimburse for medicare services that have been rendered, to pay our soldiers who are in iraq and afghanistan. but that could send shivers through our credit markets, not just here but around the world as the u.s. has had a huge loss in confidence. that could end up with major concessions. so if you borrow from your credit cards to buy a dishwasher, a car, or send your kids to school, that's going to become much, much more expensive. at the same time, the government has all this borrowing on its books and it has to pay interest on it. thos